Sub-12 in Van Cortlandt Park

New Jersey HS star Edward Cheserek keeps shattering records

And it was not even a fast day on Sunday for the Manhattan Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. Indeed, it was summer revisited: temperatures in the mid-80s, a strong sun, no cooling breeze. The performances reflected that. Only 15 boys in the varsity races and Eastern States Championship — about half the usual number — bettered the gold standard of 13 minutes for the hilly 2.5-mile course. At the finish, a goodly number of athletes from among the 8,750 runners from 325 schools in 15 states (and Canada) were treated for dehydration, leg cramps and other heat-related difficulties.

But the weather was no problem for Edward Cheserek, the amazingly talented native of Kenya who runs for St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark. After running 11:55.4 to triumph by 26 seconds and break Joe Rosa’s 2-year-old course record by 8 seconds, Cheserek told me when asked about the heat, “It was OK with me.” With improving English and a warming to the spotlight that last year he found obtrusive, he also said: “I wasn’t really pushing until the last 800.” Cheserek is a matter-of-fact kind of guy.

Cheserek ran with the pack on the opening quarter-mile flats into the woods. With continuing revamping of the site by the New York City parks department, the race start was moved back to more or less its original place, perpendicular to Broadway. It was a welcome change after last year’s convoluted start near the finish that had angled the fields into the woods.

“Cheserek was with me for the first 800,” says Nick Ryan, who placed fifth to lead the Fayetteville-Manlius boys of New York to a solid second behind victorious Christian Brothers Academy of New Jersey, the nation’s top-ranked squad. “He tried to run past me and I went with him. Then 200 yards later he blew by me. I never saw him again.”

It was Cheserek’s third major course record in three weeks — after Garret Mountain and Holmdel Park in New Jersey — and his coach at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, Marty Hannon, said, “Eleven fifty-five is unbelievable. Edward keeps blowing me away.”For the second week in a row, Cheserek broke a Joe Rosa record. Rosa’s Van Cortlandt record was 12:03.8 set in 2009. Rosa’s Holmdel 5K record was 14:56, also in 2009. Cheserek, who trained with Joe on the Holmdel hills over the summer, ran 14:53. Rosa, one of the most accomplished prep runners in recent years, is now a freshman at Stanford.

The course record has quite a history at Van Cortlandt, where they’ve been running cross country for a century. Thirteen minutes was first broken with a 12:58 in 1963, which means the record has come down about a minute in 48 years. Cheserek has run 27 seconds faster than Alberto Salazar ran on the course, 28 seconds faster than Marty Liquori, 23 seconds faster than Alan Webb.

When I was running at Van Cortlandt in the early ‘60s, we considered a 13-minute time to be godly. After it was broken, my teammates and I would speculate on who could run close to 12 minutes, never mind 11-something. We thought Gerry Lindgren (who’d just run his indoor 8:40 in ’64), or maybe some Kenyan. Not a Kenyan schoolboy but an Olympian.

And now a Kenyan has done it! About 16 months after setting foot in the U.S., on a need-based scholarship, Cheserek, a junior who turns 18 in February, is in full flight as an American high school superstar. He has the strength of Lukas Verzbicas, the grace and humility of the Rosa twins and the respect of everyone he meets. At Holmdel and Van Cortlandt, runners and bystanders threw out a hand for a shake, a touch, a look. They called to him from a distance. They talked about him on their cool-downs.

What’s next for Cheserek? This Saturday he will run the Brown University Invitational on a fast course at Goddard State Park in Warwick, R.I. Last year, Cheserek won the 5K event in 15:01, missing the course record by a fraction of a second. He also said that, regarding nationals, he was leaning toward Foot Locker, confirmed by Hannon. Last year, Cheserek was a close second to Verzbicas at Nike Cross Nationals (NXN). Hannon wants to enrich Cheserek with all manner of experience so Cheserek will be looking forward to his first trip to California. If that decision holds up, NXN would likely be wide open in the boys’ individual ranks.

As far as the NXN boys team race goes, CBA held onto its national No. 1 ranking with a third dominant performance against major opposition in three weeks. After a big win on the NXN regionals course at the Bowdoin Classic in New York and the previous week’s near-record run in the Shore Coaches meet at Holmdel Park, the Colts put all five scorers in the top 25 at Vanny for 60 points. Their 13:02 average probably would have been closer to the mid-12:50s (Fayetteville holds the record, 12:48.8, in 2004) had Tim Gorman, the team’s top man at Shore, not fallen after 500 meters and gotten buried in the pack. Gorman got up and wound through the narrow pathways in the back woods to 23rd place. George Kelly led CBA in 12:48. New Jersey’s second-best harrier, Tim Ball of Piscataway, took second in 12:22.

CBA got especially good news from a solid performance by come-backing senior Conrad Lippert, the fourth scorer in 14th after being sidelined for 10 days with a strained gluteus medius. “We thrive on the No. 1 rankings,” says Lippert. “It shows that people think we are that good, and it motivates us to work hard so we can be that good.”

The Colts cannot afford any let-up as national No. 2-ranked Southlake Carroll of Texas, letting loose for the first time this season, scorched the Nike South meet last Saturday at The Woodlands High School. Against the best in Texas as well as visiting Palos Verdes, a nationally-ranked team from California, Carroll took four of the top eight places and six of the top 14 to defeat PV, 32-75, with The Woodlands third in 132.